


Here's to the Afterlife

by garglyswoof



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, adventure murder fluff, damon shade, i'm reviewing my own fic in the tags, in which i use only the parts of canon i like, send help, this fic needs more bonnie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 08:31:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13186302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garglyswoof/pseuds/garglyswoof
Summary: Caroline's been living the dream of Whitmore life, but to be honest, she's bored out of her mind. So when Mystic Falls once again rears its supernatural head, Caroline's almost relieved - until she realizes she'll need the help of one Original Hybrid.Set after 5x11 in an AU ignoring any and all season 6 things, and also Bonnie never died, because we all know that was lame.





	Here's to the Afterlife

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soapmaniac22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soapmaniac22/gifts).



> This um...got a little bit away from me. It is less fluffy than I was hoping to write as I am pretty sure that's your jam, but I really do hope you like it!!!

When she thought about it, Caroline realized the relative quiet of the last year or so at Whitmore - no witches planning their deaths, no ancient, petulant vampire with a grudge -  had almost been... _boring_. This was Mystic Falls, after all – thwarting the latest supernatural threat was basically a lifestyle. So yeah, while she’d thought regular college life was what she’d wanted, the fact that her breath caught and her adrenaline spiked at the very real prospect of facing some new disaster? Well, maybe becoming a vamp had turned her into a bit of an adrenaline junkie.

Turning from her desk, Caroline spotted a box marked “Elena”; the last of her friend's things left in the dorm. Caroline wasn't ruling out friendship in the future, but it had been clear that the two had grown apart, and she honestly didn't care to try to find common ground and repair the damage when Elena's clear priority was sucking face with Damon Salvatore. She sent a text, knowing that the two were probably in Bali by now, and honestly thankful neither her nor the Salvatore brothers were around to make this recent threat all about them.

Honestly? It was refreshing.

Caroline spun back to her desk, flipping the pages in her binder and content to focus on the problem at hand as she scanned through news clippings laden with notes jotted in the margins. Vampires had been dying in tightening circles that seemed to be narrowing in specifically on Mystic Falls: a small town in Pennsylvania had seen three bodies staked in some sort of ritual, a rural community outside Nashville had reported the mysterious ‘animal’ that had stalked their town suddenly no longer threatened, a paper in North Carolina’s big headline involved several wild animal attacks. All things that seemed disconnected until you plotted them all out, put them together. Not to mention the red flag -  a report of a raving mad killer loose in the streets of Baltimore that some said even bullets couldn't take down.

Hunters. One dead and a vampire paying the mad price for it. And if the dates and locations of the reports were any indication, and Caroline knew they were, the hunters were _close._

Her phone skittered across the nightstand with a notification.

_You rdy?_

Caroline smiled, thumbing her response.

_Always bon_

Life felt like it was falling into place. Which was a weird thing to think when you were about to go researching vampire hunter attacks with your witch friend whom you’d gotten incredibly close with now that love triangle drama was out of the way, but there it was. Caroline felt _alive_. She felt a part of everything around her, not invisible, not less than, not an afterthought.

Swinging a jacket over her shoulders to cut the chill of the fall air, she set out to meet Bonnie.

* * *

_Darkness. The sound of breathing made ragged from fear and...something else. Anguish, the emotion washing over him in a brutal wave. He felt himself cry out._

_Henrik! Brother!_

_The cave echoed his scream back at him, the sound desolate and broken. He felt his muscles tense and the sound of wood hitting water. He was rowing in the darkness, the boat gliding through waters once still._

_Henrik!_

_He cried again. Silence responded. The air grew thick and heavy, weighting his limbs as they pulled the boat through the darkness, the heaviness suddenly lifting quicker than it'd come. It was like he'd crossed an invisible line, and the darkness retreated, a dim green light revealing an impossible forest._

Klaus' eyes shot open, certain now this was no dream. A solid week of the same image, more and more details emerging that felt too real to be anything but memories. Ones that had been lost to him for an eternity.

Lenore...Esther. He put the pieces together. His mother's true death at the hands of vampire transition must have cleared the spell cast on his memories. _Spelled for a thousand years._

He sat up in bed, sheets bunched around his waist as he struggled to recall past the rage coursing through him. The memories were coming back in bits and pieces, and they felt as fresh as his sibling's latest betrayal.

The falls. A cave. Something….he was trying to contact his lost brother in the dream, so he’d still been human? But..no. The grief in his voice had to mean Henrik was dead. Oh god was this when he was just turned?

More details fell into place. A cave – behind the falls – the veil somehow weak there. The days after Henrik's death, before and after their transition. Klaus had come here, to escape Mikael's rage and his own guilt, had found this passage and sensed the magic in it.

It was just like his foolish young soul to believe in hope, he thought derisively, pulling on a henley and jeans, raking fingers through short curls. He picked up his phone, dropping it as another flash of memory hit.

_Hand slanted to block the light, so blinding to his new senses. He’d entered the cave at dark, time must be altered in the place of magic. But where was he now? The landscape was unfamiliar, swampy where his home was forested. He felt the panic rise._

Klaus’ eyes widened in his French Quarter studio. How _interesting._

More memories, flooding faster, drowning his senses. How he’d emerged from the veil in a different place each time. On one occasion, Elijah had found him ten miles away. Another he’d emerged inside his people’s longhouse - he could taste both villagers and crippling shame on his tongue even now. His mother, staring at him with a mix of fear and confusion, looking in his eyes and murmuring Old Norse, the air crackling with her magic. The memories pulled from him, but one, oh one he’d clung on to the hardest until his mother had stolen that one too. Its return was visceral, he felt his heart sink and his stomach twist with emotions long-buried:

_A woman, dark face creased with time, smiled gently at him. “Oh child, your brother is not here. This is a land where magic dies.”_

 

* * *

 

Caroline drew great heaving breaths, panic setting in as she closed her door and locked it with shaking hands.

 “Ok ok ok ok ok what can I do, how do I fix this?” she mumbled to herself, frantically pacing in the hallway of her childhood home. They’d been ambushed outside Whitmore’s library, the heavily armed attackers spraying Caroline with vervain before she’d been able to do much more than snarl. Bonnie had gotten a spell off but the magic had sputtered and fizzled out as her assailants clamped some kind of magic dampener on her arm.  It had been so fast and so _organized._

 The hunters had found them.

Caroline was far from an idiot. She knew attackers that well-trained could have easily killed them with no need to take Bonnie hostage. So their game had to be something else entirely. Elena? The Salvatores? _No way,_ she thought. She stopped pacing and opened the fridge, bending over to grab the B positive her mom kept fresh for her visits.  Free laundry and meals, that’s what mothers were for.

The taste of metal hitting her tongue brought with it a flash of insight. The hunters? The attack? They’d let her get away for a reason, and if it wasn’t about Elena? This was about her, but more than that, she’d bet money it was about the monster that seemed to only care about her. The certainty of it chilled her - why else would the hunters want Bonnie as a bargaining chip other than a chance to kill _thousands_ of vampires? And even though Klaus had kept his promise and she hadn’t seen him since Katherine’s ‘funeral’, if the emotionally-stunted Damon could figure out his attraction and use it, she wasn’t surprised the hunters could use it too. Hell, she wouldn’t put it past Damon to be the one to tell them. Ehh, that probably wasn’t fair, but she didn’t really give a shit about being fair to Damon Salvatore.

But now the reality hit, because the _last_ thing she wanted to do was contact Klaus. They’d left things in a good place - and that was putting that day in the woods lightly - but really, Caroline wasn’t ready.

Klaus was a forever she hadn’t agreed to yet.

Well then...she’d have to just convince _him_ to break their promise, since she wasn’t about to make a new one by showing up at his door. Her phone’s cursor blinked just below his name, still saved in her phone.

_So uh you know any way to kill a hunter without triggering the curse?_

She stared at her phone for thirty seconds. “Come _on_ Klaus, use that vamp speed to check your texts.”

_Caroline?_

_What you dont have me programmed in your phone im hurt_

_Just surprised. A hunter’s curse can’t be avoided, Caroline. What is going on?_

_u sure theres not a secret handshake or something before you kill them?_

Her phone vibrated and with a sigh she picked it up.

His voice was serious with a hint of suspicion, like he was trying to figure out the puzzle. “If you kill a hunter, you're as good as dead, love. What's going on? I thought things would calm down without the doppleganger in your midst.”

Caroline wasn’t the least bit surprised that he kept tabs on her. “Yeah, well, your creepy sources aside, Bonnie's just been kidnapped by who knows how many hunters. So, I need to stop them.” She paused, took a sip from her blood bag as she thought of her next words. “I-- I’m not looking for any major help Klaus, I just wanted some advice. I have some tricks up my sleeve.”

Klaus jaw hardened as he listened. “I’m sure you do, sweetheart. But as brilliant as you are...” He paused long enough that Caroline almost interrupted his next words, words that didn’t continue the thought but started a new one, words that came out in a rasp, a breath ghosting across the miles.

“Will you forgive me for breaking my promise?”

Her breath caught in her throat without her permission, and she tried to lighten the mood, more to escape her feelings than anything else. “You know, this is totally what a friend would do, Klaus. Have you been practicing without me?”

She could almost hear his smile over the phone line.

 

* * *

 

 

“Look, I can totally see how being able to enter the Other Side without dying would be useful, but how is it gonna help us save Bonnie?”

Klaus glanced up at her through his lashes almost coquettishly, a devilish grin spreading across his face. “Because, sweetheart, crossing the veil isn't just about reaching the Other Side. It's about travelling through it.”

The two vampires sat in Caroline’s living room - which she wasn’t even gonna talk about how _bizarrely normal_ that felt - the ice in Klaus’ glass clinking as he drank the whisky reserve Liz had kept for Damon’s visits.

Caroline threw up her hands, irritated despite the dark thrill his stare over the glass was sending up her spine. “Could you maybe be less pleased with yourself, and more helpful with the explanation?”

Klaus lips twitched at her annoyance, but he answered. “When I traversed the veil before mother wiped my memory, I did it several times. At first when I emerged back into the real world, I found myself near where Founder’s Hall exists today... _not_ the falls.” Klaus stood, spotting a book on her shelves and pulling it down, opening it up to a map of Mystic Falls and the surrounding area. “Here, the first time I traveled,” he commented, pointing, “and here, here, and here, the next few.” There was a note of cruel humor in his voice as he continued. “One time I ended up fifty miles away in the middle of a tribe of Powhatans. They were surprised to find me in their midst.” His grin was vicious, though Caroline thought she saw something faltering in it, some piece of him he was holding back.

“So what you're saying is the veil can, like, teleport you? But how can you control where you go?”

“Because, Caroline. I know a lot more than I did back then. The Other Side is essentially a one-way mirror onto this world. We'll pass through the veil, see where the hunters are holding the Bennett witch from the other side, figuratively and literally,” Klaus smirked as he continued, “and emerge just where we need to be before enacting your admittedly brilliant plan.”

Caroline smiled her own self-satisfied smile. It _was_ a good plan, and thank god her and Bonnie had worked on enchantments when Whitmore was on winter break. If only she'd remembered before she'd texted Klaus...well, she'd be stuck with no way of finding Bonnie if she hadn’t. And honestly, she realized, it was good to have him here. Good to have someone she trusted here, that she could rely on.

“You know, it pays to be friends with the Original hybrid,” she said, a grin in her voice, and Klaus smile was so sunny in return it almost floored her. Caroline wondered as she often did if she was Klaus' first real friend in his vampire life, Ripper notwithstanding. His smile certainly made it seem that way, and the red, blaring warning signs that flared in her head when it came to Klaus Mikaelson grew a little bit dimmer.

 

* * *

 

Caroline was trying not to look at Klaus’ butt and was failing miserably. To her credit, they were hiking the path that led down to the falls and had to clamber over rocks which put it _right there_ at eye level. She looked away for the fifteenth time, and for the fifteenth time he caught her before she did. His eyes glittered and she voiced an irritated huff, pushing past him to walk in front. He made no attempt to hide his own stare and she stopped in the middle of the trail, the falls a distant rush of sound.

“Seriously?”

His answering smile was wicked. “I was fine walking ahead of you while you ogled me, love. It was your choice to forge ahead.”

She shook her head, eyes raised to the sky, and walked on, trying not to blush. Something had changed since that day in the woods, her confession. There was a familiarity, a conscious _knowing_ of what those hands felt like on her skin, how his own skin tasted. It wasn’t something you could shove in the back of your mind and forget.

The sooner they got this rescue over the freaking better.

The roar of the falls grew overwhelming as they drew close, and Caroline couldn’t help the pang of nostalgia. So many parties, so many illicit beers while Elena, Bonnie and her had giggled about boys. She loved being a vampire, but there was a part of her past that would always be trapped in the amber of fond memory, and there’d always a part of her that missed it like crazy.

She turned towards Klaus, a question in her eyes, and he pointed at where the water thundered into the pool at its base. “It’s over there, just behind the falls. There’s a path that cuts through.”  

Caroline couldn’t see the entrance, but began picking her way down towards the base, straining to see behind the water’s torrent.

“The spell Esther placed on the falls has lasted for a thousand years, and will last for several lifetimes more. It’s only my memories that allow me to see the path, juxtaposed over what you see, like a shadow,” Klaus said as if expecting the question, his lips at her ear to be heard over the din of the falls, his hand cuffed around her upper arm. She pulled back to let him lead the way, one hand on his shoulder as they stepped forward, the air a cool mist from the spray of the falls.

“Close your eyes, love. It will be easier,” Klaus said, and she swallowed, the idle thought that this must be what entering Platform 9 3/4s was like flashing across her brain. _Bonnie loves Harry Potter,_ came the unbidden thought, and she pushed back the pang of anxiety, took one look at the spray and the rock behind it, closed her eyes, and stepped.

The cave was dimly lit from the sun that managed to slice through the falls, and the stones at the entrance slick from water and time. Caroline brushed at the mist that dewed on her shirt, suppressing a shiver as she looked around. The cave was open towards the front, narrowing as the cave went further in to what looked like a tunnel.

“I can’t believe all this has been here this whole time,” she said almost wonderingly, her hand still on Klaus’ shoulder. He smiled back at her, apparently able to hear her over the din, and motioned her forwards. Pale light glittered in the quartz that lay embedded in the slick rockface, the whole cave dappled in shifting light. It was beautiful, and Caroline couldn’t help but gape as they moved close to the tunnel, the floor sloping downwards.

Klaus knelt down next to the tunnel’s mouth, Caroline’s hand dropping from his shoulder as he unwrapped something on the ground that crumbled in his hands. Leather, she noted, kneeling down next to him as he uncovered a piece of wood. He reached into a pocket, pulling out a match that he lit on the sole of his boot and held to the wood. It took a few moments to catch, though the wood was surprisingly dry from the protective leather.

She was about to pull out her phone to use the flashlight app because _hello_ when she caught the look on his now-flamelit face and words staggered to a halt in her throat. Such a mix of emotions flashing across that bladed cheekboned face -  grief warring with anger and a sort of reverence that left her confused. The torchlight flickered off his features, shadow and light, and when he looked up at her it was too late to wipe the softness from her gaze.

His answering smile cleared his brow and he began walking, the cave wide enough for them to fit side-by-side.  “I put these torches here over a thousand years ago. It’s strange to have the memories back, as if they’re brand new.”

“I can relate,” Caroline said, her tone strangely bitter, and Klaus glanced sharply at her. She could guess at his expression. “It was a bit of a brutal wake up call when I became a vampire,” she said, still not meeting his eyes which flickered back and forth from her to the path ahead. “Not a fan of compulsion - or spells,” she waved at him idly in acknowledgment, “to mess with someone’s head like that, their thoughts and feelings…” Caroline stopped, surprised at how much she’s said. Damon was always in the back of her head, anger and fear and doubt and uncertainty all raging inside, but she’d learned to keep it to herself.

The space between them grew heavy and Caroline could almost hear the gears turning in Klaus’ head as they walked on in silence. The tunnel had widened, and the echo of water dripping served as a thankful distraction. A cavern opened up before them, the torch crackling and throwing light on faintly-rippling water. Klaus eyed Caroline for a few moments, jaw working as he clearly searched for either a response or a question she most likely wasn’t ready to answer. He surprised her by dropping it, though his eyes blared fierce warning that this was not the end of it. Turning towards the open cavern, he made a small noise in his throat and rushed ahead, kneeling down at the shore of what seemed to be an underground lake where a wooden object lay upon the stones.

A boat.

“Did you-”

“Yes, this was mine,” Klaus said reverently. Caroline knelt down next to him, running a hand along the rough-hewn wood. It was strange to think of Klaus a thousand years ago, before countless years of carnage and distrust. Something in her broke a little at the thought.

“So where is the Other Side?”

“The veil lies somewhere towards the middle of the lake, I think. It’s...been quite some time,” Klaus said dryly as they pushed the boat into the water. He waved with a gallant hand towards the boat and she stepped in gingerly, more used to paddle boats on Lake Mystic than, well, ancient Viking wooden boats.  Klaus hopped in after her with his characteristic grace, passing the torch to her as he grabbed the oars. His necklaces escaped his shirt with the first pull through the water, the torchlight shining off the metal. Even in the dim light, she couldn’t help but watch the lean muscles of his arms stretch and contract as their boat glided through the water. Her throat grew dry remembering those arms put to a different task. She cleared her throat and looked away - the constant awareness of his body and its proximity to her own was seriously annoying.

“Why here though?” Caroline asked to cover up her irritation.. “I thought the veil couldn’t be breached in the physical world.”

Klaus’ eyes glittered as he replied, the boat knifing through the water. “The Mayans believed that caves were the gateway to the underworld. They would leave the bodies of their fallen, with gifts to ease their passage. Perhaps the Mayans were right,” he shrugged, a pause in the rowing, and the boat drifted along. The torch crackled and smoked in Caroline’s hand, throwing flickering light to illuminate glittering stalactites that descended almost to the lake’s surface.

“Perhaps there are other paths through to the Other Side in caves like this one, doors we haven’t discovered. Or perhaps this is the only one, rooted here because of the creation of myself, my siblings, so close by.” He glanced up, studying her face. His eyes closed for the briefest of moments, lashes shadowing his cheeks in the guttering light.

“When I found this place, I felt the magic, felt the presence of death. I thought to use it to find my brother, Henrik.” His voice held the briefest of tremors in it at the name. “I did not know the veil obscures only supernatural, that humans-” Klaus cut off, jaw clenched. Caroline reached over instinctively, grabbing his hand that lay still on an oar. He looked up in surprise and she marveled again at how the simplest of gestures seemed to hold the most meaning to him.

He cleared his throat, changing the subject and adopting a lecturing tone, a return to form that made Caroline strangely relieved. “The Mayans’ shamans were like priests, easing the journey from life to death through ritual. In caves like this one they would sing, not songs but mantras, notes that would call to the underworld and open the path.”

Caroline could imagine it, just Klaus’ speaking voice alone felt like it was circling the walls and coming back in on itself, that accent she heard in her dreams reverberating and fading away. There was something magical about the light dancing across his cheekbones, his voice hanging in the air, and she felt something in her relax. She thought of how it would be like so many years ago, the quiet broken by song.

She surprised even herself when she began to sing, trying to find something that matched the moment, settling on a note that slid across the water and climbed up to the ceiling, a note that reflected in Klaus’ eyes with the same wonder she felt.

She let the note hang as long as she could, vibrato shaking the tail of it and the echoes forming a chorus. She thought that maybe there was nothing else in this world that could match what they both felt right here and now and oh, isn’t that what this unlife was made of?

It was magic. And the boat, still drifting, now in silence, crossed the veil.

A heartbeat as one, their bodies in sync. Silence. Another thud, loud in its contrast. Then calm. Three. Calm. Four.

Chaos.

Wailing took over the silence, a screech of anger, the growing roar of voices. Still in the boat, Klaus grabbed the oars and pulled hard, the grey-green water of the newly-lit cavern seemingly reluctant to part. Caroline passed through something not-quite-tangible and the shock of cold put out the torch. She let it drop to the floor of the boat as she looked around, alarmed.

“I seem to have a fan club in the afterlife,” Klaus said with a grin.

“Are you _serious_ Klaus? God, why didn’t i think about this. How can we make this boat go faster?” A crowd gathered around them now, seemingly walking on top of the water as they approached. Klaus seemed unfazed, but Caroline was starting to panic. “How are we going to get past them?” She said, and at Klaus’ continued grin, “I’m beginning to think I should just let them mob you.”

The first of the ghosts closed in, forms lost so long on this side of the veil that they lacked substance, like clouds dissipating. But that didn’t mean there weren’t more tangible enemies close behind. The boat surged upwards suddenly, the water sluicing off as the ground rose. Caroline grabbed the edge of the boat, looking down at the ghosts they’d left behind. Klaus, out of the corner of her eye, stood up, eyes laser-focused on something in front of him. Caroline whipped her head around to follow his gaze.

“I can’t believe you’d come back here, after all you’ve done.” The speaker was a black woman, face creased and folded with age, body surprisingly solid in comparison to the ghosts that surrounded her. Her hair lay atop her head in coiled salt-and-pepper braids, and she gave Caroline a strangely knowing once-over before turning back to Klaus.

“You,” Klaus responded, his normally expressive face not revealing a thing. Caroline looked back and forth between the two, finally deciding to break the tension.

“I see you know each other already, great! I’m Caroline, nice to meet you blah blah. Look if you don’t mind skipping the pleasantries I felt a ghost hand on my arm and it’s really cold and Klaus has probably killed half of the people here so…”

“I should have never let you go,” the old woman said without a glance at Caroline which was, if you asked her, incredibly rude. The woman shook her head slowly, a condemnation. “The hurt and pain and death you’ve brought upon the world, Niklaus Mikaelson, is coming back to haunt you now. How _dare_ y-”

Klaus’ hand wrapped around the woman’s throat, choking off her words as he lifted her off the ground. His voice was shaking. “I’ll not stand here and be vilified for your choice. If I find you’re behind the threat to Caroline I’ll-”

“Klaus, she’s not behind the hunters, that’s ridiculous. Look, I don’t know what’s between you two but put her down so we can figure this out and we can get out of here,” Caroline pleaded, looking around nervously at the ghosts drifted up, starting to crowd close once more. A scream of thwarted rage that came from below seemed to turn Klaus’ hand, and she watched the woman’s feet touch the ground as Klaus let her go, a braid slipping from its coil around her head as she bent double to suck in breath. Caroline clambered out of the boat and crouched beside her, speaking softly.

“My friend Bonnie is in trouble. Klaus came to help me save her, and we really need safe passage through,” rising as the old woman straightened, back a steel beam and gaze levelled at Caroline. “Look,” she continued, “ I don’t quite understand what your history is with Klaus, and trust me I know just how awful he can be,” she shot him a warning glance, “but you weren’t wrong to let him go back then.”

She barely heard Klaus’ breath catch, so focused on the old woman whose eyes were darting back and forth in thought. The woman met Caroline’s gaze and nodded imperceptibly, less of an agreement and more a decision made. The screams rose in pitch and volume, closer now, and Caroline twitched. She was _never_ coming back here if she could help it.

“I’m not sure you realize the choice you’re making, but it’s not my place to make it for you,” the woman said with a shrug that felt too deliberate, light glinting off the silver in her hair. “It’s all the same to me now, in the end. There’s no God down here, not on the Other Side. There’s only things that can kill you and things that stay away. “ She paused, rubbing at her throat and turning her stare to Klaus. “Get out of here, and be one of the things that stays away. I’m letting you be for the child you once were, and for the Bennett witch, though it’s sentimental foolishness.” She turned her stare to Caroline, something of a challenge in her eyes, but one she thought Caroline was capable of meeting. "Your aura straddles the darkness better than any vampire I've seen. Best you keep it that way" She slashed her arm through the air, parting the ghosts gathered there like a curtain. The underground lake beckoned and Caroline quickly climbed back in the boat, sitting to balance the weight as it floated on water once more. She glanced back up at the woman, confused.

"I've been watching the hunters. I've brought you to them. Go save your friend," the old woman said in answer, not unkindly, and to a chorus of screams and the fog of gathering spirits, Klaus and Caroline passed back into the real world.

 

* * *

 

“Don’t suppose you still have that old-school lighter on you?” Caroline muttered towards Klaus, shrouded in the pitch-black of the real world.

“No need, there’s light up ahead.” His voice was rough, angry. The old woman’s words had undoubtedly enraged him.

Caroline opened her mouth to protest but followed his gaze, seeing the faintest glimmer of light emerge a few moments later. If she’d ever wondered by what degree Klaus’ senses were better than the average vampire, she knew now.

The boat scraped along the bottom and they scrambled out, pulling the craft up out of the water. Caroline didn’t think they’d return this way in a million years, but it seemed somehow wrong to just let something so ancient bob aimlessly in the lake.

The tunnel that snaked up towards the daylight was narrow and Caroline pushed ahead of Klaus, picking her way towards the arc of light. She strained her hearing for voices, heard none, and felt a pang of anxiety wondering if they’d been transported to the right place. Were they right to trust the old woman? What if they’d ended up in like Colorado or something? She was _not_ going back through the veil, at least not with Klaus. She shuddered.

Klaus laid the lightest of touches on the small of her back and she froze. His lips at her ear - “I can hear them. We’re right on top of their camp. Move slowly.”

The order grated at Caroline’s nerves instinctively but she heeded it, inching forward and hunching lower and close to the wall. She listened again, picking up the sound of wind rustling through the trees - and there - a fire crackling, low voices in conversation.  She fumbled at her chest, drawing a cocked eyebrow from Klaus, sighing in relief when she patted the vial still in her bra. She glared at Klaus with a finger to her mouth, though he hadn’t spoken, and he pulled his lips in to hold back his growing smile.

She wasn’t given enough time to be annoyed, his arm suddenly banded about her chest and his lips grazing her ear. “They’re just ahead, love. Shall we give them a show?”

Her eyes flashed with the double meaning, traitorous mind conjuring memories he no doubt intended to stir up, his lips curving against her ear a confirmation. She pulled away and turned to him, her head cocked as if considering, idly biting at her lower lip. She smiled inwardly in triumph as his throat bobbed in a swallow. Two could play at this game.

“What do you have in mind?” she asked, her voice a tease, and his brows rose in delighted surprise.

“You have _no idea_ , Caroline,” he said with a smirk and she hid her shudder and pulled her thoughts back with effort. What the hell was she doing flirting with Klaus while Bonnie was still in danger?

But you know what? She _knew_ they’d save Bonnie, the certainty of it spreading through her like a balm. There was something about having Klaus on her side that made her feel almost giddy. Reckless. The monster’s call, loud and sure.

Klaus was eyeing her thoughts greedily as they spread across her face and she shook her head. It was a step up from an eye-roll or a scoff, he at least deserved that. “I’ll follow your lead, Klaus.”

He grinned like a child, all boundless joy until you thought about the violent reason behind it, and he flashed ahead, a blur in the dusk light. Caroline followed, hearing voices raised in alarm and the cock of crossbows, pained screams and shouted orders. God, how many of them _were_ there?

“Not hunters, not all of them,” she heard Klaus yell back at her as blood sprayed across her shirt and a body slumped to the ground to reunite with its heart. She heard the click of a crossbow firing and ducked, rolling underneath the bolt, dry pine needles sticking to her knees. She came up with her hand around the neck of the shooter, his beard scratching her palms. “How can you tell?” she yelled back as she snapped her attacker’s wrist, knocking the crossbow to the ground.

Klaus’ voice held a smile as he answered, yelling over the snap of bone. “The mark died with Silas, but they still reek of magic.”

Caroline sniffed tentatively, smelling only pine, fear and old sweat from the man she still held by the throat. She picked up the fallen crossbow and clubbed him, knocking him unconscious. Mr. Discerning Palate could handle killing the right ones, she wasn’t taking any chances. She scanned the area, spotting a flicker of movement past the flames of the campfire and flashed over as a voice cut through the din.

“Caroline?” Bonnie’s voice held a note of fear that struck the same into Caroline’s heart.

“Bonnie?” Caroline’s eyes found her, a tall man with a goatee, his skin crackling with the scent of magic - _oh_ \- held a blade to her friend’s throat. He nodded, as if in greeting.

“Thanks for so graciously accepting the invite, Caroline. I’m Aidan. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Can you ask your plus one to stop killing all the fodder? It’s so tiresome writing letters of condolence.”

Caroline’s eyes widened. What the hell? She knew they were after her and Klaus but she hadn’t thought that the hunters would so blatantly disregard human life in pursuit of them. “The Mystic Falls Comedy Club is near the mall, Aidan. Why don’t you take your act there instead?” She eyed Bonnie, who looked at her with wide eyes that spoke volumes. Bonnie was _never_ scared. Caroline felt rather than heard the violence dim, and Klaus appeared at her elbow, a look of grim satisfaction on his face.

Aidan tightened his grip on the knife he held at Bonnie’s throat and grinned wolfishly, seemingly ignoring Caroline’s quip. “Ahh, the man of the hour. Just who I wanted to see. The Brotherhood extends its warmest greetings. We were surprised to find,” he nodded at Caroline, smirking, “you so easily manipulatable.” Aidan shrugged, his long hair sliding across his shoulders. “Guess everyone has a weakness in the end.”

The brotherhood circled around them laughed, though the rest of the hunters’ laughter held a note of strain as they surveyed the carnage.

“Oh I’m _so_ going to enjoy watching you die,” Klaus responded, his smile beatific, though Caroline didn’t miss his hands clasped behind his back in white-knuckled fists. She caught his eye and smiled, earning a scoff from the hunters, before pulling the vial from her bra, popping the cork, and tossing it in the air where it hung for a moment before emitting a blinding light. The hunters shielded their eyes, grimacing, but she’d closed her own, now barely catching the flash of motion from Klaus despite watching for it. He was so _fast._ Almost forgetting the ruse, she quickly flashed herself to one of the hunters, her fangs bared to the crowd as the light dimmed and their sight returned. Klaus stood, his feet crossed at the ankle in a casual pose, an arm wrapped around the throat of another one of the brotherhood. An owl hooted somewhere close by.

Aidan laughed as his vision cleared, still holding the knife edge to Bonnie’s throat. “Well _that_ was underwhelming. You do still realize that I can kill her before you kill the rest of us, right? Not to mention the lifetime of insanity you’re buying yourselves with their deaths.” Bonnie grunted as Aidan adjusted his grip around her ribcage and Caroline narrowed her eyes in fury.

“Do you really give that little a crap about your friends?” she called out, trailing a finger across the hunter’s neck as he tried to jerk his head away.

Aidan levelled his gaze at her. “This power play means nothing. Hunters pledge to kill vampires and each and every one of us is willing to sacrifice for a chance at ridding the world of your plague.”

“I’m afraid we’ll have to give you a rain-check on that chance, mate.” Klaus spoke up in an almost jovial tone.

Aidan’s eyes narrowed, flicking back and forth between Klaus and Caroline. She almost laughed at the suspicion clearly fueled by Klaus’ brash overconfidence. There was something about outsmarting an enemy that tasted as sweet as blood on the tongue. She turned the hunter's face towards her with brute force, pupils dilating as she murmured lowly, catching Klaus doing the same out of the corner of her eye.

Aidan opened his mouth to say something, ask a question, make a threat, but he never got the words out. 

A crossbow bolt flew high while a dagger flew low as the hunters turned their dilated eyes on Aidan. Bonnie ducked out of the lead hunter’s loosened grasp as the crossbow bolt found its mark in his eye, his training unable to restrain a scream. Hunters tried to fight the compulsion and failed, turning on each other with brutal efficiency, and Caroline darted to Bonnie as bodies slumped lifelessly to the ground, the forest quiet except to vampire ears that paid witness to the sound of fading pulses echoed with Bonnie’s shaking breath.

“That was...some rescue, Care,” Bonnie said, then added with a wary eye towards him, “Klaus.”

Caroline smiled, slinging an arm around Bonnie’s shoulders. “Aww, come on you _had_ to know when you saw the vial. Finding a way to drain vervain with magic was totally your idea.”

“So I guess I kinda saved myself then,” Bonnie said with a smile, knocking her hip into Caroline’s. “But seriously, thank you. I know they were using me as bait and I was relatively safe, but it was still...not the most fun experience I’ve ever had.”

Klaus stood back, idly kicking at a hunter’s corpse and rolling it over when Caroline beckoned to him while she spoke. “We actually traveled through the veil to find you. Long story, honestly, but I couldn’t have done it without Klaus.” In the most casual of gestures, she slid her arm through the crook of Klaus’ elbow, pulling him close. He stood rigid for a moment before relaxing into her grip, his brows raised and a small smile dancing across his face. He looked so pleased with himself that Bonnie let out a choked, incredulous laugh.

“It was Caroline’s idea to get them to kill themselves. Inspired, really,” he said after a moment.

Bonnie glanced at Caroline, her eyes clearly asking a question Caroline wasn’t sure of the answer to, but she was distracted by her canines aching with the smell of blood. She knew from Bonnie’s shudder that she wore her monster’s face. Caroline wondered if her friend would ever get over her being a vampire.

Bonnie looked away, though her voice was kind. Her hand touched her wrist where the hunter’s bracelet still lay. “I...I think I’m good, Care. I’m gonna go home, figure out how to de-spell this dampener, take a crazy long shower and go to bed. Her eyes flickered between Caroline and Klaus.

“I-” Caroline cut off, confused and distracted, her head spinning with the adrenaline of the fight and the still-warm blood that wet the ground, pine needles dyed a dark red.

“She’ll be fine, love,” Klaus said, his arm still linked in hers, and she turned to face him, surprised and frustrated at her lack of control. He smelled of the forest and metal and his hands were coated to the elbow in hunter’s blood. She wanted to lick it off. She tried to think of reasons why she shouldn’t.

The tension was thick as they found their way back to the road, where they broke into one of the hunter’s cars. There was something hilariously pedestrian about riding in a car, covered in blood, the world’s most dangerous creature lounging in the back seat, legs stretched out as he stared out the window. Caroline managed to remove Bonnie’s dampener in time for her to wipe the car clean with magic, and they ditched it in a culvert just outside Bonnie’s neighborhood, walking Bonnie to her door where she gave a small half-smile while her eyes screamed questions at Caroline. She shrugged in answer, giving her own half-smile, and Bonnie tilted her head in an odd sort of gesture, closing the door with a “text me tomorrow, Care,” her tone almost hilariously ominous.

Klaus and Caroline walked slowly back towards her own house, cutting through the woods, both of them unconsciously trying to stretch out the moment. She realized she wasn’t ready for Klaus to leave, tugging on the hem of her shirt where the blood had started to dry, crackling it off in a fine dust.  Her veins thrummed and she still rode the monster’s high, resurging to life now that they were alone. Klaus sensed the shift, his eyes darkening and darting to her lips, but he held himself back, his hands clutched loosely behind his back. Caroline knew it was her choice, and tried to think of reasons why she shouldn’t make it.

“So headed back to New Orleans drama, then?” She said lightly, glancing sideways at him through lowered lashes.

His jaw clenched and she regretted asking. “I’ll be done there soon. I was brought to New Orleans on false pretenses,” he glanced at her, his eyes shining with malice. “Just have a few more left to kill.”

Caroline wanted to roll her eyes but realized the absurdity of it. Somehow she’d gotten to the point where murder was just part of Klaus’ identity to her. Like dimples. Or his hilariously professorial bent when he was spouting off knowledge. Maybe it was the bloodlust still singing in her veins, but she was having a hard time caring that people would die at his hands, and she tried to think of reasons why she should run.

“Your vampire face is exquisite, Caroline,” he said out of the blue, turning to lift a hand to trace where the veins once flowed beneath her eyes, and his touch is what broke her. She grabbed his hand almost violently, and slowly, with the most careful deliberation and holding his gaze, she  dragged his hand across her lips, her tongue snaking out to taste the blood on his skin. The wind stirred through the trees, lights from a far off house bright in the dry air.

“Caroline…” Klaus said her name as if it was a warning.

Caroline felt like she was drugged, lust and adrenaline swirling together in a haze. She tried to pull herself back, tried to say something to distract, but she ended up asking for her own sort of confession from him. “Do you ever think about it? About us?”

“Are you asking if I ever think of our time in the woods?” At Caroline’s small nod, his hand lowered to trace her lip, tugging at it gently. “Do I think about your hair wrapped around my fists, your voice crying out, my tongue curling inside you?” His voice held a tremor, barely holding himself back. “Do I think about how you brought me to my knees with a promise I curse every day for keeping?”

It was that unexpected statement that had her surging up, lips meeting tongue and teeth, messy and feral with the taste of blood underpinning it all. A gust of wind rattled the leaves in the trees and she almost broke the kiss to laugh. Because here they were, in a Mystic Falls forest, and you know what? Maybe _this_ was _their thing._


End file.
